Sektori Review – Review – Nintendo World Report

If you combine the thrill of arcade-style high score chasing, the vibe of a pulsing dance club, and the visual spectacle of a fireworks warehouse explosion, you get Sektori, as addictive a video game as any I’ve ever played. At its core a twin-stick shooter, the elegant simplicity of its controls allows the full spectacle and impact of its aesthetic to take center stage. Sektori takes minutes and transforms them into hours, making it the closest thing to time travel that I’ve ever experienced, and what a trip it’s been.

Across a variety of modes, you pilot a triangular ship called the Redeemer, which can be customized in terms of appearance as you unlock new palettes and propulsion effects. A couple other ships can also be unlocked. Once you’ve selected a suitable vehicle, jumping into the campaign mode gives you the first unforgettable taste of what Sektori is all about. Around you various enemy shapes materialize as your environment contorts and conforms into different sizes and designs, meaning you need to spend as much time shooting as you do moving to a new vantage point or safe space. Your only other move besides shooting is a short, straight dash that ends in a small explosion around your ship; this strike attack can save you from a tight spot or help you set off a chain reaction of strikes if you manage to explode or cut through a bomb token. Collecting enough pick ups from defeated foes allows you to upgrade your ship’s capabilities, like speed and weapons, Gradius-style, and eventually you’ll survive long enough to face a screen-filling boss.

Across three difficulty modes, the challenge ramps up significantly, but even the first setting offers a satisfyingly tough experience. Failure is often humbling, and I have no issue admitting that I’m not the best at twin-stick shooters, but the way in which each new attempt feels unique is a key incentive to make just one more run. The enemy patterns, progression, and music can and do switch up from run to run, and when you want a break from the campaign, additional game modes can hold your attention as much if not more than the campaign does.

Touching on each of the six extra modes briefly, we begin with Classic, which sees the playing field remain static while your score multiplier increases the longer you ignore the single token that upgrades your ship and recharges your shield. I love the relative simplicity of this mode and the stark risk-reward proposition of it.

Surge sees you flip flop between strong and weak forms as you try to last long enough to gather a new token and turn into a geometric super Saiyan for a few moments. Lots of enemies show up in short order, making for an intense race to score high and fast.

Gates is a mode that I shunned early on but that really grew on me over time. Your weapons and strike are disabled, and your objective is to fly through laser gates that gradually materialize on screen, causing a large explosion that gives you a little more breathing room. Tokens also appear to help you thin out the growing mass of enemies. I like the focus on maneuvering and escaping that feels unique compared to other parts of Sektori.

The aptly named Crash puts the focus squarely on your strike ability, namely a special triple strike that lets you dash and burn multiple times in succession. Essentially, you’re striking around the map and chasing bomb tokens as they appear to ratchet up your score.

The wave-based Assault removes the randomness built into Sektori and presents you with the same enemy waves each time you play. That said, it may be the hardest of the extra modes given its 3-minute time limit and the quick ramp up in difficulty, wherein collecting the special green token advances you to the next wave.

Boss Rush is both an obvious choice of game mode to include in the bunch and also an obvious candidate for most challenging. It’s great practice for the fights you face in the Campaign mode, and it lets you select harder variations of the bosses, often featuring an additional form to overcome, as you encounter them in the Campaign.

114 medals to achieve give added incentive to keep playing and to try out new builds and progressions, and online leaderboards for basically everything in the game make for a true arcade feel on a global scale. Even during the review period for this Switch 2 version of Sektori, I’ve pushed myself particularly in the modes I felt weakest at to practice and strive for higher scores. The variety of game modes give me the sense that players will also be able to find their niche and eventually carry over mastery in one gameplay style to others.

For some, seeing Sektori in action or hearing it be described might be enough, but I didn’t “get it” until I had a controller in hand that eventually became sticky with sweat as I realized just how long I had been playing before taking a break. This is the logical evolution of classics like Geometry Wars, Resogun, and of course, Asteroids. And if you took any of those and added even more lights, colors, and a pulse-pounding soundtrack, you’d be within that heavenly realm that Sektori occupies. A true high-score chasing masterpiece in every sense of the word, Sektori is an unmissable addition to the Switch 2 library and an experience that I plan to stretch out for the rest of 2026 and beyond.